Groin Strain
by DancingGrimm
Summary: The story of the time that Scout got both his feet stuck behind his head and everyone was a jerk about it.


Groin Strain

Or

The story of the time Scout got both his legs stuck behind his head and everybody was a jerk about it.

It started with that damn magazine.

In it there was this guy talking about yoga, which Scout had never heard of before, and it sounded kind of pansy, but then there was all this stuff about how it could make you super strong in muscles that other exercises didn't reach and that's got to be pretty cool, right?

And there was a photo of the guy showing off how flexible he was, with both his legs folded up and hooked around so his feet were behind his head.

Now, no shit, Scout can touch his foot to the back of his head. Either foot. While standing. And that's a pretty cool trick, good at parties. But this thing in the magazine? That would be even cooler.

Besides, anything that yoga guy can do, Scout can do better. Naturally.

It took him a while, and a few tries, and yeah maybe a few bruises on his forehead, but in time Scout was sitting on the floor of his quarters, both feet behind his head, being fucking awesome.

It was about five minutes before he realised he was stuck.

About another five before his legs started to go numb, which felt horrible enough to make him get over wanting to deal with it himself. So he yelled for help.

"Hey! Hey, I need some help in here!"

Because him and his team? They were tight. Band of brothers. This whole yoga feet thing, it was an honest screw up. They wouldn't be jerks about it.

He heard Demo's distinct, uneven footsteps approach the door, and then a knock.

"It ain't locked, come on in."

Demo opened the door, glanced around the room, then looked steadily at Scout for a good thirty seconds. Then he closed the door again.

Scout could hear him laughing his ass off out in the corridor.

"Jerk," he muttered.

A couple of minutes later, Demo came back in, grinning broadly, and stood over Scout.

"What the hell have ya done ta yourself?"

"It's all this stupid yoga guy's fault. Can you unhook me?"

Demo laughed a bit more, but then he walked around behind Scout and looked him over.

"All right, I'm gonna try and pull your foot out of the way. Looks like you ought to just...unfold."

"Yeah, do it."

Demo yanked on his foot. And Scout screamed, because that fucking hurt like crazy!

"What the hell did you do!?"

"Ah fuck."

"What? What!?"

"I thought this was a Lariat knot, but it's really more of a Zeppelin bend. I think I made it worse."

"God damn it!"

"Stay put, lad. I'll go and get the doctor."

"What? No!"

But before Scout could protest that he _really_ didn't want the Medic, Demo was gone.

Jeez, he was probably going to end up with ostrich legs or something. God damn transplant-happy Medic.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, he heard the Medic's voice coming down the corridor, demanding to know why Demo couldn't just tell him what was going on, and Demo telling him he had to see it to believe it.

It wasn't _that_ weird.

So, Demo let the Medic in, and the Medic stared sternly at Scout while Demo got over his second fit of giggles, and Scout glared back at the Medic and hoped for the best.

"Ve need to take you to zhe lab," Medic said after a good long stare. "I'll deal vizh you zhere."

"That sounds pretty ominous, doc," Scout said warily.

"You are ridiculous," Medic told him, and went off to get a gurney. Demo remained in the door of Scout's room, grinning at him.

"What?" Scout demanded.

"What the hell were you tryin' ta do, lad?"

"Nothin'. Just this trick from a magazine."

"Oh aye?"

"Yeah. What's it to ya?"

Demo just grinned at him even wider, and before Scout could ask what he was getting at, Medic showed up with the gurney.

"Help me to lift him," he said to Demo, and together they found places to get a grip on Scout (not a fun process) and hoisted him up onto the gurney. After laying him on his back made his hips make a freaky popping noise, they decided to sit him upright, like he had been on the floor, and propped him into place with pillows. Then Demo held the door open while Medic wheeled him out into the base, in the direction of the medical lab.

This would be okay. It would. Medic would untangle him and then he'd be all right. Just as long as he could get to the lab without tipping over and falling off the gurney, it'd be okay.

As long as he could get to the lab without anybody else _seeing_ him.

Like, a second after he'd had that thought, Medic wheeled him around a corner, and there was the fucking worst case scenario.

Spy.

Spy was standing in the middle of the corridor with his back to them, messing with his cigarette lighter, so Medic slowed down as they got nearer to him, and Scout didn't want him to slow down because it would mean Spy would have more time to notice they were there, but he couldn't tell Medic not to slow down because then Spy would _definitely_ notice they were there...

And then Spy noticed they were there.

He turned his head and looked at Scout.

His lips twitched.

His eyebrows wiggled.

Then he let out a whoop of laughter like something that ought to come out of a teenage girl on a roller coaster.

"Scout is stuck," Medic said blandly.

Spy shrieked some more, gasping for breath, which set Demo off again too. Scout cringed. Medic sighed.

Spy collapsed to the floor, wheezing.

"Get out of zhe vay!" Medic snapped, and shoved the gurney forwards, ramming Spy in the side and nearly tumbling Scout over. Still heaving with laughter, Spy got out the way and grabbed onto Demo to haul himself back to his feet. When Medic set off for the lab again, Spy and Demo trailed along after them, still sniggering like kids.

"Jerks," Scout called back. Medic told him to be quiet.

Finally, they rounded the corner to get to the lab and, because Scout's day wasn't shitty enough already, Heavy was standing there with a Scrabble box under his arm, one fist raised to knock on the door.

"Why is little Scout..." he began, as Medic wheeled the gurney past him.

"Terrible accident," Scout heard Demo tell Heavy. "I told 'im not to stand so close to the microwave."

"Close the door," Medic yelled at them, and they did, but not before coming into the lab, where they settled themselves around the room, out of Medic's way, to observe. Spy was still struggling to contain his laughter; he kept glancing at Scout, slapping his hand over his mouth, then looking away again. Medic set the brakes on the gurney, gave Scout a little shake to make sure he was still sturdily propped up, then disappeared from view.

"But...is not microwave," Heavy said. "What happen?"

"It's this thing I saw in a magazine. It's just...stupid," Scout said.

Heavy frowned at him. "Need better reading material. I bring you some Tolstoy. Build character."

"Uh...no. Thanks."

Medic, who had been rattling around in a cabinet outside of Scout's field of vision, suddenly reappeared holding a syringe. Scout tried to cringe away from him, but he couldn't move enough.

"What's that?"

"It's a muscle relaxant," Medic told him solemnly. "You have probably overstrained some of zhe muscles in your legs and hips. It vill be painful for you if I vere to simply straighten out your – _aahahahaha I can't!_ He looks like a pretzel!"

Medic dropped the syringe and folded over laughing, which set off Spy and Demo again. Heavy looked despondently at his Scrabble box, then set it down on the counter he was leaning against and crossed his arms, scowling into the middle distance. Scout would have happily killed all of them. Seriously.

They'd just started to settle down when Spy got the hiccups. Not just any hiccups; gross, loud hiccups.

"Ah _hiccup_ merde!"

"Aw hell," Demo said. "I hate listenin' to that. Doc, what do we do?"

"Startle him," Medic suggested.

Spy promptly took a big step away from Demo, who had been a hair's breadth away from pinching his butt.

"Don't _hiccup _touch me!"

"No, no, is to put snow down back of shirt," Heavy said.

"Middle o' the desert," Demo reminded him.

"Oh. Hm."

"Nobody is going to do anything to me," Spy said. "It will pass on _hiccup_ it's own."

"Ja, ve ought to untangle Scout first. Zhis probably isn't doing his circulation any good."

"Yeah, no shit," Scout muttered.

There was a knock on the door, and Sniper pushed it open a little way and poked his head through.

"What's all the...fuckin' Christ."

"Come in and have a look!" Medic said brightly. "Doesn't he look just like a pretzel?"

"Or a Zeppelin bend," Demo said.

Sniper didn't say anything. He just stood there in the doorway, staring at Scout in silence for a few moments. Then he frowned and left.

"_hiccup_"

Medic shrugged, then crouched down to hunt around on the floor for the syringe he had dropped. Heavy turned to Spy.

"You know," he said, "When you do hiccup, is sound like word. Like you are saying, I think, 'gestalt'."

Spy frowned. "That's a German word, is it not? What does it mean?"

"Shape," Medic put in, from where he had crawled under the gurney.

"Da," Heavy said, "but also means psychological theory of how mind organises perception."

Demo whistled. "Well la-di-fuckin-da! How come you can say all that, but you cannae manage to say 'sandwich' properly?"

"Hey, yeah," Scout said. "Or 'bullet'? You always say it like 'boo-let'."

Heavy sniffed. "Is less important words," he said. "People can tell what I mean."

"_gestalt_" went Spy, because now none of them could un-hear it.

The door abruptly banged open. The gurney jerked as Medic jumped and hit his head on the underside.

"Little bastard!" Sniper barked, pointing at Scout as he strode into the lab. "You've been goin' through my post!"

Scout opened his mouth to tell him to go to hell, but then noticed that Sniper was holding a certain magazine, and that yeah, he kind of had.

Sniper rolled up the magazine and smacked him on the head with it.

"Ow! Jeez, I'm not exactly in a position to fight back here, jerk!"

Sniper scowled at him, then reached out and pinched the tendon on the back of Scouts knee and, oh would you look at that, it turned out there _was_ some sensation left in his legs after all.

"Aargh!"

"Sniper! Get off him!" Medic commanded, slapping Sniper's hand away. "He'll be in plenty of pain vhen ve unfold him, don't you vorry."

"Yeah? Well I'm sticking around for that," Sniper growled, and went lurking off to some bit of the lab where Scout couldn't see him, creepy bastard.

And if the situation wasn't bad enough already, everyone present suddenly became aware of the approaching thump of size 13 army boots. They all managed to duck back in time to avoid getting a shotgun pointed at them as Soldier came barrelling through the lab doors. Except for Scout, who couldn't move.

He got both barrels practically shoved up his nose.

"I heard screaming!" Soldier bellowed. "I did not cause it!"

"Get the hell away from me!" Scout screamed.

About then, Demo grabbed Soldier by the shoulders and pulled him back. "It's all right, man," he said soothingly. "Scout's just had a wee accident and got stuck like this. The Doc's unstickin' him."

"Accident?" Soldier demanded, giving Scout the stink eye.

"Aye. He sneezed so damn hard, his legs popped right outta place."

"God damn Commie cold viruses," Soldier snarled. "We gotta pull out all the lightbulbs, men! That's how they get you! Through the light waves!"

He pointed at his own eyes with his index and middle fingers, twisting around to repeat the gesture at everyone else in the room, the effect spoiled somewhat by his helmet having slipped down over his face.

"Cold viruses cannot affect people zhrough light fittings," Medic said, inspecting the syringe he had finally picked up.

"Commies are cunning!" Soldier yelled, and went charging back out the door again, feet pounding away down the corridor. Heavy muttered something mean sounding under his breath in Russian.

"_gestalt_"

"Doctor," Heavy said. "After Scout is fixed, you play scrabbling game with me?"

"Nein," Medic replied, flicking the syringe with his fingernail.

"Aw!"

"C'mon, Doc! Just get it over with before anybody else comes in!" Scout pleaded.

"Oh, one moment. Zhe tip of zhe needle is bent. You don't vant zhat!"

Sniper sniggered meanly.

The door creaked softly, and for a moment Scout thought it had just moved by itself. Then he noticed Pyro's face peeping through the gap. As far as he could tell, he was being stared at hard, but it was difficult to be sure with the lenses.

"Uh...Pyro?"

As soon as Scout spoke, everyone else in the room turned to look at their teammate. Nobody said anything for a moment.

"uhn uhpuhkuh. Wuuh..." Pyro finally said, breathy and awed sounding. Then he slowly receded, letting the door creak back into place.

"Anybody catch that?" Demo asked.

"Nope."

"Nyet."

"Nein."

"Nah."

"_gestalt_ No."

"Vell, one of life's little mysteries," Medic said brightly, and wandered back into Scout's field of vision, holding a fresh syringe and a vial to fill it from. "Nearly zhere," he assured him.

"Great. Just get it over with."

"Sounds like you got another visitor," Demo said suddenly, and now new footfalls could be heard from out in the corridor, quieter and slower than Soldier's, but accompanied by a number of soft jingling and scraping noises. "This'll make nine for nine, eh lad?" He pushed the door open and held it, grinning, to let Engineer in.

"What are you guys doin' in here? You know Soldier's workin' his way down the corridor outside with a stepladder, takin'..."

He trailed off into silence as soon as his eyes settled on Scout.

"Scout got in the dryer for a dare," Demo said, enjoying himself far too fucking much.

Engie just stared blankly at Scout.

"Soldier is taking down zhe lightbulbs, ja?" Medic asked. "I'll have to dig out zhat picture book vizh zhe cartoon germs and explain it to him. It seemed to vork last time."

"What did you really do?" Engie asked Scout.

Scout could feel his face turning red. "It was just this stupid thing in a magazine. It looked easy, but I got stuck. That's all."

Engie shut his eyes, shook his head and sighed deeply. Scout felt like he was getting told off by the principle.

"Son, look," Engie began, looking everywhere but at Scout. "I know it ain't easy, bein' out here on the base, just us. But there's better ways to deal with it."

"Huh?" Scout said.

"I mean, sure, it's not like there's any ladies around, and all of us get a little..." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "...lonely..."

Demo and Heavy nodded. Spy was once more trying not to laugh.

"Wait, what? This...it...I...No!"

"An' just cos' a magazine has certain...appealing themes, it don't mean it's right about everything."

"No! No, it...it's..."

While Scout was spluttering, Medic seized his opportunity and stuck the needle into his thigh.

"Ow! Ah fuck, jeez that hurt!"

"Ja, I'm sure," Medic replied, and turned away to drop the syringe into the heavingly full 'to be autoclaved' box.

Engie wasn't done. "All I'm sayin' is, just cos' it seems like a good idea-"

Scout abruptly noticed that nobody was laughing at what Engie was saying.

"Wait, you _all_ think this is what I was doin'?"

Nodding heads all around. "What else?" Heavy said.

"No! No, it...damn it, Sniper? Where the hell are you?"

Chuckling hoarsely, Sniper strolled into Scout's range of vision, flipping through the pages of the now crumpled magazine.

"That's another thing," Engie said sternly. "Sniper, if you're gonna have alla' that weird, crazy Australian porn, you gotta keep it outta reach o' the youngsters."

"Ain't porn, mate," Sniper said, holding up the magazine to show the cover. It read 'World Fitness Monthly'.

Spy was sniggering again. Everyone else looked baffled.

Sniper opened the magazine at a particular page and held it up to Scout. "I reckon this is what you were aimin' for, yeah?"

"Yeah," Scout replied miserably.

Sniper turned the magazine so everyone else could see the photo. "Yoga," he said. "Good for your back. Handy if you're tall. 'S'why I wanted the mag in the first place. Except people train for years before they can do stuff like this properly." And for the second time that afternoon, he rolled the magazine up and smacked Scout in the head with it.

"So," Demo said, pointing at him. "You got yourself in this daft situation, you're in pain, you're humiliated...and it weren't even for a good reason?"

"It was for a great reason!"

"Spinal healzh is qvite important," Medic put in.

"You wanted to impress girls, didn't you," Spy said.

Scout scowled at him, and he, Demo and Sniper all cracked up again. Assholes.

As if to save Scout from continuing this horrible conversation, the door quietly creaked open again. Pyro stepped into the room and walked softly towards the gurney. He was holding a tablespoon full of Cheerios, which he cautiously offered to Scout's left knee.

"Uhh..." Scout said, and couldn't come up with anything else.

Mercifully, Medic chose that moment to grab Scout by the shin, pull, push, and then violently shove. And suddenly Scout's legs were back in front of him again.

He might have screamed a bit, but seriously, so would anybody else in that situation.

Pyro jumped back, scattering cereal. "uh, uhz _yuuh_!" he exclaimed. "wuh wuuh yuh dizguzh uz uhn uhpuhkuh?"

"Oh God I dunno," Scout moaned, clutching weakly at his aching legs. "I dunno what the hell you think is happening."

Engie shushed him, patted Pyro on the shoulder, then gave a weary sigh. "Okay, I'm gonna need some help with Soldier," he said authoritatively. "He musta' gotten round half the base by now, rate he was goin'. Demo, Spy, you guys go and distract him. Just do whatever you can think of. The rest of us are gonna gather up all those light bulbs and put them back in their sockets. Medic, if he asks, you, tell him you disinfected 'em all. Scout's excused until his legs are back to normal. All right?"

The rest of the team registered grumbling acceptance and Engie set off to get to work. Everyone else milled about the lab a bit, trying to find an excuse. Scout lay on the gurney, wishing death on the yoga guy and everything he loved. Sniper hit him with the magazine again on his way out of the lab.

"You haven't hiccuped in a while," Demo pointed out to Spy.

"No, it is as I said it would be. It passed on it's ow-_gestalt_. Merde!"

They left the room too, almost tripping over Pyro who was down on the floor, presumably picking up Cheerios.

Heavy picked up his Scrabble set again and shook it at Medic. "Doctor, after we fix lights, you play scrabbling game with me, da?"

"Nein, you cheat," Medic said. He had got a clean white sheet from somewhere and was spreading it over Scout.

"Do not!" Heavy cried.

"You misspell things deliberately. You use the wrong letters."

Heavy gave a put-upon look. "In the Cyrillic alphabet-"

"Zhat box you've got is in zhe _English_ alphabet. If I cannot use a B as an eszett, you cannot make 'nipple' begin vizh an H!"

Pyro got to his feet and left the room, singing quietly and carrying the full tablespoon of cereal out at arms length in front of him like he was doing a balancing act, free hand up in the air for, presumably, reasons of showmanship. Heavy followed him, giving Medic an annoyed look over his shoulder.

Medic peeled his gloves off and took Scout's pulse. "You are feeling all right?" he asked.

"Well, my legs hurt like crap. Other than that, yeah, pretty much."

"Gut. Vell, the side effects of zhe muscle relaxant vill kick in fairly soon, so I'm going to strap you in," he said, and before Scout could voice a protest, the doctor had flipped the straps up from one side of the gurney and reached over him to attach them on the other side.

"Take a deep breazh," he instructed, and Scout yelped as Medic pulled the straps tight.

"What the hell is that for?" he demanded. "What side effects?"

"Oh, you'll see. I must go an help vizh zhe lights, but I'll come and check on you later."

And with that, he left the room.

Scout lay back on the gurney, wondering what the hell was going to happen. Could be anything. He might be about to grow boobs. Or a tail.

He wondered if Spy's hiccups had stopped yet.

He wondered what a Zeppelin bend was.

He wondered if Soldier would buy that Medic had cleaned the Communism off the light bulbs.

He wondered how Engie knew what Australian porn was like.

He wondered what Australian porn was like.

Above his head, one of the doves landed on the light fitting and peered down at him, cooing softly.

Then it turned purple and grew tiny horns. And suddenly it's beak was shaped like a trumpet. And then the light fitting was a giant salad bowl and Scout was falling into it, but he was still stuck to the gurney which was made of logs like an old-timey cabin, and Sniper was there in a check shirt like a lumberjack, and he was trying to make Scout look at pictures of wombats dressed in lingerie.

Thus began one of the worst trips Medic had ever caused.

::

And so, Scout vowed never to put both his feet behind his head again.

Which lasted until the New Year's Eve party, when he tried tequila for the first time.

But that's a story for another day.

::

So this is my first TF2 story. I'd really appreciate some feedback about it, if anybody's got time. I plan to write more soon, including without doubt some nice, smutty porn.

I actually intended to start writing in this fandom a long time ago, but I got so bombarded with plot bunnies that I kind of stalled; I couldn't decide which ones to pursue first, and would get a few thousand words into something and then have another, better idea.

Fingers crossed, I can get out of that habit!

And if you were wondering, Pyro's dialogue was, in order;

"An alpaca. Wow..."

"Oh, it's _you_!"

"Why were you disguised as an alpaca?"


End file.
